The present state of the art for hand tools is very diverse. Wrenches, ratchet wrenches, and sockets, are all used for turning rotary fasteners and normally come in sets of five or more individual sizes. These sets often come with a carrying case or other holding structure to keep the wrench and socket tools together. Wrench designs with two, three, four or more gripping surface sizes per wrench head can be found in the prior art. Wrench sockets also come in multi-size configurations using either slidable pins, posts, and/or sleeves to adjust the size of sockets effective gripping surface. These wrench sets, socket sets, and socket sets allow the user to tighten and loosen rotary fasteners (bolts, screws, nuts, specialty fasteners, and etc.) of a variety of sizes. The disclosed folding pliers can have many different styles of gripping surfaces and can have two or more individual sizes per plier handle.
Most American homes have at least one wrench set or socket set in their home, because of the universal nature of wrenches and sockets. Thus, each folding pliers example presented in this patent includes a full set of wrenches or socket sizes. However, other tools can be substituted for one or more of these wrenches or sockets. Prior art sockets and ratchet wrenches include a multitude of ways of providing torque to various rotary fasteners, and can include a ratchet mechanism that can be bidirectional (selectively reversible) or unidirectional (ratchet action only in one direction). Along with the pliers and multiple wrenches and/or socket sizes, this invention can also comprise other tools, such as, but not limited to, hammers, screwdrivers, pry bars, scraping tools, box cutters, knives, saws, ratchet drivers (for sockets), files (wood and/or metal), axes, and other hand tools. The wrench and socket heads themselves can have a pivot hinge, pin, or knobs that allow the tool to swivel to various angles to allow greater functionality, and can be designed to pivot to a low-profile position for stowage.
The wrench heads can each come with a variety of gripping surfaces for use with different types of fasteners. The gripping surfaces commonly used today comprise: 1) four-point standard (square shape), 2) six-point standard (hexagon shape), 3) twelve-point standard (double hexagon), 4) twelve-point spline, 5) lobed gripping surfaces (both six and twelve point), 6) Torex® gripping surfaces, 7) asymmetric gripping surfaces, 8) variations on these basic gripping surfaces, and 9) many other shape specialty shapes for various purposes. This list of gripping surfaces is not exhaustive and many other gripping surface designs exist in the patent record that can be used with the disclosed folding wrench system.